19 comments:

"Earlier this year, Mr Chiles was at the centre of a multi-million pound tug-of-war between the BBC and ITV, which is believed to have offered him a £6million deal to become the face of its football coverage.

Instead Mr Chiles, whose mother is Croatian, opted to stay at the BBC with a £2million, two-year deal."

What possible reason could they have for including the nationality of his mother in that report...?

Well I found it informative, I had no idea he had a Croatian mother so my knowledge of the world has been increased by a tiny degree. Though I doubt her origins do have any relevence to the story.

However juliam do I take your straight faced disinterest in his origins as proof of your race-blind liberalism?

If you were American you would be arguing that Mexican immigrants are natural conservatives who are going to vote Republican any day now (though not actually doing so).

We have plenty of natural conservatives in the UK too. Muslims, Indians, Chinese they are all just queuing up to vote Tory are they not. I wonder what it is that stops them? Still as long as we keep pretending its all about politics and race has got nowt to do with it, everything will be A-OK!

You know perfectly well what my point is but are, I presume, unable to frame a response which appears to be 'conservative' while maintaining an affirmation of your liberal view that race is an irrelevance.

In other words the world view of Jon Gaunt, Richard Littlejohn and the like.

"You know perfectly well what my point is but are, I presume, unable to frame a response which appears to be 'conservative' while maintaining an affirmation of your liberal view that race is an irrelevance."

No, I actually don't know what your point it. You don't seem to be able to communicate very well - perhaps you should stop looking for hidden meanings and coded messages, and just read the words? Just a thought...

'Race' didn't actually enter into this subject at all - I wasn't aware that Croatians were a different 'race', so much as a different nationality.

Julia M - what are you on about?'An innuendo-laced hatchet job'?Chiles' Croatian-ness is not secret, and the Mail's use of it is not sinister; it's just (to those who don't already know - he can hardly shut up about it himself) a mildly interesting and descriptive fact about him... like the word 'Brummie'. Unless that's also a 'not one of us insinuation'? Help! Nurse! How about you lie down somewhere quiet, or get some help, or just fuck off. I don't care which you do, but do one of them.

"Chiles' Croatian-ness is not secret, and the Mail's use of it is not sinister; it's just (to those who don't already know - he can hardly shut up about it himself) a mildly interesting and descriptive fact about him... like the word 'Brummie'. Unless that's also a 'not one of us insinuation'?"

Well, 'anon'at 9:04 didn't seem to know. And I can't say I'd ever seen it in any other publication. In fact, a quick google of news sources shows that even the BBC has only mentioned it in sports-related stories.

But perhaps the fragrant Ms Garvey is about to sign up for the football team to spite her workaholic husband, so maybe it is relevant after all... ;)

"Help! Nurse! How about you lie down somewhere quiet, or get some help, or just fuck off. I don't care which you do, but do one of them."

If the proprietor of this blog wishes me to do that, I presume he'll tell me, or ban me.

Your opinion on any subject connected with my coments here doesn't carry any weight with me...

I think the "mother is Croatian" bit is likely to be in there because of the journalistic habit of chucking in every known fact out of the cuttings file in order to bulk out the piece and get it finished as soon as possible.